Idle Thumbs

Len, Fraser, and Jon take a look at Shiro Games' Dune: Spice Wars, which just launched into early access. Is this the modern Dune RTS we've been waiting decades for? As it so happens, it ends up igniting an entirely different kind of war in our own ranks.

We explore our impact on the strategy game world as Jon sits down with creative director Kyle Kukshtel to talk about Cantata, an indie space tactics game directly inspired by a conversation we had on this very show almost a decade ago. So how exactly did our kvetching inspire the design of this project? How do you make a tactics game that isn't secretly just a puzzle game? And what was the thinkin...

Rob and Rowan are joined this week by freelance writer Ruth Cassidy, whose article, "Ethically designing unethical worlds" (https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/ethically-designing-unethical-worlds) inspired this week's topic. From eugenics in Crusader Kings to choosing between fundamentalism and fascism in Frostpunk, the games we play often put us in the position of someone who has to make some p...

This week, Rowan recruits Fanbyte's Mike Williams, freelance writer Kendal Erickson, and 3MA's Correspondent for All Things Three-Sided, Brian Smawley, to discuss Triangle Strategy. The Switch has had some sleeper strategy hits, and we're here to let you know if this one belongs among them. Beware of salt.

In this episode, Soren interviews Luca Redwood, the developer of 10000000, You Must Build a Boat, and Photographs. They discuss why 10000000 has no commas, how he makes sure the player never gets unlucky, and why you need to build a boat. This episode was recorded March 18, 2019. Games discussed: Morph, Suikoden I, Suikoden II, 10000000, Puzzle Quest, Chuzzle, Dungeon Raid, Henry Hatsworth, The Wo...

Len and Mike are joined once again by Dr. Bret Devereaux (@BretDevereaux), Visiting Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of the blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (acoup.blog). The topic this time around is Empires and Imperialism. What exactly makes an empire? How do strategy games model empires and the process of imperialism,...

Len, Rowan, Fraser, and Jon join forces on one episode for the first time in a long time to talk about Total War: Warhammer 3. With nine new factions, a new story-driven campaign, and a customizable daemon protagonist, it's an ambitious capstone to the trilogy. Pledge yourself to Podcast Undivided and find out how we think it stacks up.

Len and Ian take a look at the first full expansion for Crusader Kings 3, and it's a chunky one. Royal Court adds a full 3D throne room and the ability to interact with your subjects at eye level for the first time. Forging new family heirlooms and new cultures. Has it reignited our interest in CK3?

In this episode, Soren interviews veteran game developer Robin Hunicke, co-founder of Funomena and best known for her work on MySims, Boom Blox, and Journey. They discuss why developers overperform their authority in large companies, how they almost accidentally made Journey a competitive game, and why they decided to let thatgamecompany run out of money to ship the game. This episode was recorded...

This week, Jon and Rob dig in to what Rob has dubbed "yet another entry in the crowded Lunar Lander Bullet Hell Naval Wargame Roguelike Visual Novel genre." It's not an easy game to get into, so how did our boi go from cursing its very name to absolutely adoring it? What exactly is this game, anyway? And why should every good fleet commander read the manual?

In this episode, Soren interviews veteran game developer Robin Hunicke, co-founder of Funomena and best known for her work on MySims, Boom Blox, and Journey. They discuss why HyperCard was so great, why AI development is game design, and how Steven Spielberg almost made Angry Birds for EA. This episode was recorded December 1, 2021. Games discussed: Pitfall, M.U.L.E., Offworld Trading Company, XCO...

Len and Troy plunge gladius-first into the Late Republic to win victories on the tactical and strategic scale in Expeditions: Rome. The third installment in the series has more going on than ever before, but is it /too/ much? And what is the correct way to pronounce Cicero, anyhow? We came. We played. We did a podcast about it.

Len and Rowan come in for a low glide over 2022's calendar of strategy game releases to discuss what excites us, what worries us, and what smaller stuff we're keeping an eye on. Will Victoria 3 live up to the hype? Can Marvel's Midnight Suns satisfy our in-house X-Mean aficionado? Will Dwarf Fortress ever actually come out? We don't know the answers to any of these questions, but we can certainly...

Troy and Len are joined by PCGamesN's Ian Boudreau and Fanbyte's Mike Williams to look back on a year that's a bit hard to summarize. Why can't we find a theme to slap on 2021? What were some of the biggest surprises, good and bad? And what were our favorite strategy games in what was, if nothing else, kind of a weird year for them?

In this episode, Soren interviews veteran RPG designer Josh Sawyer, best known for his work on Icewind Dale, Fallout: New Vegas, and Pillars of Eternity. They discuss the purpose of grinding, the difference between viable and optimal characters, and why RPG players don’t welcome rebalancing their games. This episode was recorded March 24, 2018. Games discussed: Baldur’s Gate series, Icewind Dale s...

Len and Kotaku's Luke Plunkett dig into the logistics-laden recent expansion and patch for Hearts of Iron 4 with No Step Back and the Barbarossa Update. How has it changed how we play, and how does HoI4 feel different now compared to launch? We also go into the joys of playing wacky scenarios with historical focuses switched off and making the dumbest tanks the engine will allow.

In this episode, Soren interviews veteran RPG designer Josh Sawyer, best known for his work on Icewind Dale, Fallout: New Vegas, and Pillars of Eternity. They discuss how making a website for a tattoo parlor led to his game career, what is the purpose of traps in an RPG, and how much lore is too much lore. This episode was recorded March 24, 2018. Games discussed: Adventure, Ultima series, Bard’s...

It’s Day 5 and PSG.LGD finally face off against their TI8 rivals, OG (formerly Monkey Business), in one of the most anticipated matches of the International Dota 2 Championships in Shanghai. Luckily, esports researcher and MIT professor T. L. Taylor joins us to discuss our experiences both inside the stadium during an intense match full of cheers and jeers and then outside during an equally intens...

Rob got to check out a pre-alpha build of Company of Heroes 3's multiplayer, and now he's sitting down with lead gameplay designer Matt Philip and map designer Will Ward. Among the topics on the docket are how the flow and pacing of battles has changed from previous games in the series, keeping familiar factions fresh without betraying their identities, and the challenges of creating maps that app...

In this episode, Soren interviews veteran game developer Chet Faliszek, who co-founded Stray Bombay and is best known for his work at Valve on games such as Left 4 Dead and Portal 2. They discuss what shampoo sales have to do with Old Man Murray, why he tests his games in a foreign language, and why game design is easier for co-op games. This episode was recorded August 17, 2021. Games discussed:...

Rowan, Jon, and Ian Boudreau talk about Against the Storm, an early access city-builder that forces you to abandon your cities after a set amount of time. How do these shorter runs affect how we approach the genre? What does a beaver need, on a deeper level, to be happy? And why were we so eager to do an episode on this when early access city-builders are thick on the ground these days?

Rowan recruits Fanbyte's Steven Strom and long-lost guest Jason Wilson to take a look at Darkest Dungeon II in early access. That's right, five years later we finally put out an episode with Darkest Dungeon in the title. How does it differ from its predecessor? And which of the changes do we actually like? How do we feel about the fact that they can kiss now? How do we feel about a sequel that is...

In this episode, we put the art back into ARTS on Day 4 of the International Dota 2 Championship. First Yang Jing will tour UnArt Center, a media art gallery that doubles as an esports venue, then Peter will exhibit AutoSave: Redoubt, a Counter-Strike map reconstructing the scene where Japanese and the English first encountered one another in the Battle of Hong Kong during World War Two. But is Do...

Len and Ian Boudreau discuss Age of Empires 4, the long-awaited return of one of the RTS genre's defining franchises. What's new and what's been kept the same? And where would we like to see it go in the future? Okay, okay, I'll say the thing: wololo. Get it? It's funny because I said a thing you remember. Humor is when someone says a thing you remember.

Len, Rowan, and Mike are joined by Dr. Bret Devereaux (@BretDevereaux), Visiting Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of the blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (https://acoup.blog). The topic is The State in strategy games. What is a state? What are the advantages and disadvantages of making a game about states, and seeing histo...